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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 
IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HISTORY 

NUMBER 3 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE AS A 

FORMALIST IN EDUCATIONAL 

PHILOSOPHY 



% i^ - v ? 6 :%* l 



BY 

VIVIAN TROW THAYER 

INSTRUCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY 



MADISON 
1921 



UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

NUMBER 18 SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HISTORY NO. 3 

NOVEMBER, 1921 PRICE 50 CENTS 

Published bi-monthly by the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, 

Wisconsin. 

Entered as second class matter August 31, 1919, at the postoffice 
at Madison, Wisconsin, under the Act of August 24, 1912. Accepted 
for mailing at special rates of postage provided for in Section 1103, 
Act of October 3, 1917. Authorized September 17, 1918. 

No. 1. The colonial citizen of New York city, by Robert Francis 
Seybolt. 40p. Fifty cents. 

No. 2. The restoration of the southern railroads, by Carl Russell 
Fish. 28p. Fifty cents. 

No. 3. The misinterpretation of Locke as a formalist in educa- 
tional philosophy, by Vivian Trow Thayer. 24p. Fifty 
cents. 



UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 
IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HISTORY 

NUMBER 3 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE AS A 

FORMALIST IN EDUCATIONAL 

PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

VIVIAN TROW THAYER 

INSTRUCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY 



MADISON 
1921 



> 16 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

JAN1 41922 



^ ... r -_ ^-^iiiii —»"■' ■' 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE AS A 
FORMALIST IN EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY 

I. 

What constitutes the significance of a thinker? Does it 
consist alone in the truths which he creates and hands on to 
posterity as a fixed and unchangeable inheritance? Or, does 
it rest as well in his capacity to stimulate his followers to 
advance into promised lands where he himself can plant no 
seed and consequently reap no harvests? Perhaps as science 
becomes less static and dogmatic we incline to recognize a 
man's importance more and more in terms of the problems 
which he sets for others to solve and less as regards his def- 
inite and tangible contribution to the fund of human knowl- 
edge. Hume in metaphysics is, of course, an illustration of 
this latter type. His destructive analysis of the metaphysical 
presuppositions of his day forced a right-about-face in the- 
ories of knowledge and a new attempt to describe the nature 
of the human understanding. . 

So, too, Herbart in his psychology. Herbart's ideas bear 
much the same relation to the concept of mind as do Hume's 
impressions of memory to an external world. Educational 
theory after the advent of Pestalozzi was synthesizing a mix- 
ture of philosophical conceptions. The human understanding 
which Kant reconstructed was a much more formidable and 
complex affair than that which Hume destroyed. But this 
in turn became identified with an organizing and self-develop- 
ing will. This conception of the mind as a self-revealing en- 
tity harmonized well with Rousseau's doctrine of ripening in- 
stincts and capacities. And, consequently, in the writings of 
the Pestalozzians and, later, the Froebelians, we have clearly 
enunciated theories of inner development, and the business of 
the educator conceived to be more or less exclusively, as Pesta- 
lozzi puts it, that of assisting "the child's nature in the effort 
which it makes for its own development". 

When Herbart and his followers challenged this concep- 
tion of the mind and its faculties and attempted to substitute 
for it ideas and apperceptive masses of ideas, we had not so 



4 UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN STUDIES 

much a concrete and permanent contribution to psychology as 
a confrontation of views supplying a basis for genuine experi- 
mental study of the nature of the mind. Such, at least, seems 
to have been its fruitful results. 

In the 90's the conflict between the Pestalozzians and the 
Herbartians centered particularly upon the issue of formal 
discipline. The Herbartians, conscious that right makes might, 
appealed their case to the people and the controversy spread 
from technical monograph and books, from classroom and 
laboratory, from teachers' convention and professional mag- 
azine, to the great public forum of periodical literature. 

I have made considerable effort to find a discussion of for- 
mal discipline prior to 1890. Pool's Index from 1887-1891 
evidently contains nothing bearing upon formal discipline. 
The general heading, "Education," suffices to group all mag- 
azine articles from 1891-1900, but in 1902 the Index intro- 
duces a separate heading, "Discipline," to accommodate the 
stream of articles which was soon to become a veritable tor- 
rent. Indeed, if one wishes to inform himself upon the sub- 
ject of formal discipline he will find even histories of educa- 
tion published prior to 1895 unable to satisfy his curiosity. He 
must wait either for histories written by the Herbartians or 
for histories written in the heat of the controversy over formal 
discipline. 

When he reads these, however, he learns that John Locke 
furnished the philosophical basis for formal discipline. Now, 
the fact that John Locke who died in 1704 should formulate 
an educational theory which, despite his immediate and power- 
ful influence upon the thought of his day, becomes articulate 
only in the nineteenth century, and comes to a focus mainly in 
the discussion of the last decade of that century, is sufficiently 
interesting to warrant an investigation. 

II. 

But first, what is the theory of formal discipline ? Monroe's 
Encyclopedia of Education states the theory as follows : 

This expression has been used to indicate the general reaction 
upon the abilities of a student that is by many supposed to spring 
from the method of their study rather than from the content which 
Is learned. We may distinguish, in the first place, between the 
Information and the discipline that we may derive from the sub- 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 5 

Ject; and again between the specific discipline, or increased power 
of dealing with similar material, and the general discipline or in- 
creased ability to deal with any sort of material, the treatment of 
which involves somewhat the same general powers of the mind. 
Although formal discipline, a discipline derived from the form of 
the study rather than from its content, may be said to include 
both specific and general results, it is in connection with the latter 
especially that educational controversy has arisen. 

Undoubtedly the strongest support that the idea of formal dis- 
cipline has received in the past has come from the practically 
universal belief in certain abstract mental powers or faculties. 
.... The belief in these various faculties does not of necessity 
carry with it the conception that they may be generally improved 
by exercise in specific directions. However, when emphasis is 
placed on the form of activity, and when it is assumed that all 
activities of a certain form depend upon a special inner power 
that exerts itself equally in connection with whatsoever material, 
any observed increase in its efficiency in dealing with this or that 
content will be naturally expected to appear when attention is 
directed to other content. 1 

Very frequently we find opponents of formal discipline con- 
demning a formalist because he conceives the mind as a unity. 
Thus Ruediger complains : 

Roark assumes a mind with a homogeneous unity something 
like that of a carpenter's tool, say a hatchet. The variety of the uses 
to which a hatchet can be put corresponds to the variety of the 
functions of the mind, and as the whole of the hatchet is always 
acting in any situation, so the whole of the mind is always acting. 
Improving such a homogeneous object for one function would 
naturally improve it about equally for all functions. But it is 
evident to the merest tyro in psychology, that the localization of 
function in the brain precludes any such unity of the mind. 1 

The literature bearing upon formal discipline reveals in the 
minds of the .opposition, at least, a progressive clarification 
of issues. When in 1893 the translators of W. Rein's Out- 
lines of Pedagogics used the expression "formal education," 
they believed it necessary to add an explanatory footnote. 
Rein had said: 



1 Paul Monroe, A Cyclopedia of Education (4 vol.. New York, 1911), 
II, 642-644. 

3 Win. C. Ruediger, Principles of Education (New York, 1909), 92-93. 
Recent discussions of the integrated activity of the nervous system 
would doubtless shake our "tyro's" assurance. Localization of function 
is by no means as generally accepted as it was ten years ago. The dis- 
cussion centering about Spearman's two-factor theory indicates that 
psychologists are about ready to give a rehearing to the whole problem 
of the relation between the specific and the general functions of the 
cortex. 



6 UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN STUDIES 

The fiction of "formal education" must be given up. In general 
there is no such education at all; there exist simply as many kinds 
of formal education as there are essentially different spheres of 
intellectual employment.* 

Thereupon the translators enlighten the reader with a 
definition of "formal education." 

"Formal education" or "formal culture" signifies about the same 
as the vague expression "discipline of the mind." Its extreme de- 
fendants claim that the pursuit of classic studies renders the 
intellect capable in any sphere whatever, i. e., it develops all the 
mental faculties. 

The writers who rallied about Hinsdale after his assault 
upon formal discipline in the N. E. A. convention of 1894 
very soon defined the term so clearly that benevolent neutrality 
became impossible. Thorndike, in his first edition of Psy- 
chology, puts the theory thus : 

The mind is regarded as a machine of which the different fac- 
ulties are parts. Experiences being thrown in at one end, percep- 
tion perceives them, discrimination tells them apart, memory re- 
tains them, and so on. By training, the machine is made to work 
more quickly, efficiently, and economically with all sorts of 
experiences.* 

And with the appearance of O'Shea's Education as Adjust- 
ment, in 1903, further attempts at a definition of formal dis- 
cipline were superfluous. 

According to this conception mind is so constituted that it can 
take any item of experience and use it for full value on every 
occasion without regard to the time, place, circumstances, or con- 
ditions under which it was gained. Mind receives impressions and 
makes such use and disposition of them as it may at any time 
will to do. It is not limited in present or future action to what it 
has done in the past; special exercise begets general power; good 
reasoning in cube root will give skill in reasoning in everything. 
Mind is self-contained, self-regulated, acting according to principles 
of its own without regard to the environments in which it is born 
or bred as it were. It can take particular experiences and use 
them in a general way in all kinds of situations. 5 

An examination of these definitions reveals the fact that 
formal discipline embodies several distinct conceptions. In 
the first place it holds to faculties of the mind, — to faculties of 

8 W. Rein, Trans, by C. C. and Ida Van Liew (London, 1893), 42. 

4 E. L. Thorndike, Psychology (New York, 1903). 87. Thorndike 
quotes from eight or more writers to substantiate his statements, but of 
these only three at best can be classed as psychologists and it is de- 
batable to what degree the quotations, when restored to their context, 
illustrate his definition. In the quotation from Roark, if one emphasizes 
the word rightly in the statement, "rightly strengthening the memory 
necessitates the developing and training of the other powers" (and so 
throughout the quotation), he realizes how essentially ambiguous is the 
quotation rather than its formal character. 

"M. V. O'Shea, Education as Adjustment (New York, 1903), 72-73. 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 7 

perception, memory, reasoning and the like. In this respect 
there seem to be two classes of formalists, — if we can trust the 
statements of their opponents. The one views the faculties of 
the mind as entities or agents, after the manner of the mediae- 
val faculty psychology. Thorndike seems to have these in 
mind in his reference to the faculties as parts of a machine. 
And again we have the storage battery conception of the 
mind — a unity which functions in various ways — the whole 
draining into the parts and the parts into the whole. Ruediger's 
statement above illustrates this, and it is the conception singled 
out for attack by Hinsdale in his epoch making article in the 
Educational Review. 6 Secondly, formal discipline evidently 
contends that transfer of training is the supreme characteristic 
in learning. Our critics vary somewhat in their testimony as 
regards the extent to which formalists believe in transfer. 
Monroe states that formal disciplinarians unite "on the one 
point .... that a particular activity or experience especially 
of an intellectual character, if well selected, produces a power 
or ability out of all proportion to the expenditure of energy 
therein." 7 But in the heat of controversy this becomes too 
conservative a position to oppose, and it is said the formalists 
advocate complete and equal transfer. 8 Thirdly, the formal 
disciplinarians are accused of being concerned more with the 
method of learning than with materials of education ; although 
at times we hear them severely condemned because they advo- 
cate some one exclusive material for educational training, such 
as science, or the classics. 



III. 

Since the appearance of Monroe's Text Book in Education 
in 1905 the preponderance of opinion holds John Locke respon- 
sible for a formulation of the theory of formal discipline. 
Graves, for example, speaks of Locke as "the first writer to 
advocate the doctrine of 'formal discipline.' " 9 

• B. A. Hinsdale, "The Dogma of Formal Discipline," Educational 
Review, VIII (1854), 128-142. 

T Paul Monroe, A Brief Course in the History of Education (New 
York, 1907), 255. 

8 See O'Shea above. Also S. P. Duggan, A Student's Text in the 
History of Education (New York, 1916), 183-4. 

• F. P. Graves, History of Education During the Middle Ages and 
Transition, (New York, 1914), 309. 



8 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

Historians point to the formal character of the English pub- 
lic schools as indicating in part, at least, Locke's influence. 
Both Graves and Monroe admit that Locke was unsuccessful 
in his attack upon the public school curriculum but they both 
insist his influence tended to perpetuate disciplinary methods 
of teaching, 10 and, writes Monroe, "the subsequent emphasis 
which these schools laid upon the importance of physical and 
moral discipline, through games and sports and out-of-door 
life in general, with all the training which came from the 
struggle for leadership among boys thrown almost entirely 
upon their own responsibility for government and the regula- 
tion of their relations among themselves, was due to a con- 
siderable extent to the influence of Locke's Thoughts. 11 

Now, if actual training in leadership characterizes the dis- 
cipline of the English schools whose main business it is to 
educate future leaders of English society, it would seem that 
the meaning of the word discipline is decidedly different in 
this connection from that usually ascribed to it by formal 
disciplinarians. Moreover, since both Graves and Monroe 
admit that, long before Locke wrote, the public schools had 
acquired the characteristics which even today distinguish them, 
it is at best an arbitrary procedure — out of the many possible 
factors influencing the situation — to select John Locke as the 
prime cause in determining either the prevailing mode of 
physical and moral education or the character of the schools 
in general. 

How then shall we determine the nature of Locke's influ- 
ence? One method, obviously, is to examine his writings and 
seek to reconstruct his philosophy, as free as possible from 
pre-conceived theories. This I wish to attempt in a subsequent 
study. A second method is to trace as well as we can the 
influence of Locke upon educational theory and practice. 
Educational institutions originating and developing contem- 
poraneously with Locke and assuming their fundamental struc- 
ture in the period of his dominance over thought might very 
well serve this purpose. 

Such are the academies. While the English Academies date 
from the Protectorate the immediate stimulus for their de- 
velopment was the persecution of the Non-Conformists in the 

10 Ibid., 172, 259. 

a Paul Monroe, A Text Book in the History of Education (New 
York, 1905), 523-4. 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 9 

reign of Charles II. With the exclusion of Non-Conformists 
from the public schools and universities "a high sense of duty 
to their fellow-sectarians, then, moved these ministers to offer 
the best substitute they could provide for the instruction of 
the higher schools." 12 The provisions of the Act of Uniformity 
and the Five Mile Act, says Brown "were only partially re- 
laxed by the Toleration Act of 1689, and it was an uncertain, 
half-outlawed existence which was led by the schools of the 
ejected ministers." Nevertheless they continued and multiplied. 
Brown states we have information of more than thirty of these 
institutions which were opened in England prior to the Amer- 
ican Revolution. "They are associated with the names of 
eminent men, some of them the very saints of English non- 
conformity, and others among the foremost churchmen of the 
time." From England the academies spread to America and 
rapidly became a determining influence in shaping the character 
of both secondary and higher educational institutions in the 
United States. 

Now Locke seems to have exerted a profound effect upon 
the Academy. Brown writes : 

Aside from theological doctrine, the real intellectual stimulus of 
the eighteenth century academies seems to have come largely 
from John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton; and while the thought 
of these master minds oftenest reached the schools through the 
writings of Watts and other popularizers, there are other instances 
in which we find the original masterpieces freely studied in the 
academies. The deeply religious character of both Locke and 
Newton, and the fact that, though churchmen, they were both 
earnest advocates of toleration, commended them to the men con- 
cerned with the building up of academies; and the wide intellectual 
hospitality which they themselves displayed and their success in 
enlarging the range of human thought and knowledge, appealed 
to academy men on the side of their intellectual tastes. So the 
influence of these two friends is found back of the academy move- 
ment in successive stages of its progress. 13 

In his Sketch of an English School, prepared as a suggestive 
course of study for the Philadelphia Academy opened in 1751, 
Benjamin Franklin includes Locke among the authors to be 
read in the sixth class. Other influences besides that of Locke 
undoubtedly led to the adoption of a catholic curriculum, but 
Locke's spirit approved the wide course of study characteristic 
of the academies. Although they retained Greek, Hebrew, and 

"E. E. Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools (New York, 1910), 
162. 

18 Brown, Middle Schools, 166. See Chapters VIII-XI for account of 
the academies in England and the United States. 



10 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

Latin (which were distinctly professional studies) the acad- 
emies added natural philosophy, mathematics, geography, anat- 
omy, shorthand, etc. Today we should condemn the work as 
superficially broad, but the aim at least was to furnish the 
understanding with ideas. 

Isaac Watts, who attended Rowe's Academy from 1690 
to 1694, was the most influential medium through whom 
Locke's theories were given practical application. Watts' 
Improvement of the Mind was written to serve much the 
same function as Locke's Conduct of the Understanding. It 
was designed to aid one in the management of the mind. We 
find in it the same practical suggestions as we do in the Conduct 
but it is better adapted for academy students ; and it was a 
textbook in the academies for over a century. 14 It makes no 
claim to originality and it quite frankly popularizes and gives 
detailed application to the ideas of Locke. Consequently, an 
examination of the book may shed light upon the question, 
Was Locke interpreted by his immediate followers as a formal- 
ist in educational theory and practice? 

Now we do find Watts occasionally referring to faculties 
and he deals specifically with the training of the powers of 
Observation, Memory, Attention, etc. It becomes important, 
therefore, to determine in what sense the term faculty is used. 
Do Watts and Locke conceive faculty in either of the two 
senses indicated above? 

We have but to refer to the well-known section six in the 
chapter on Power in Locke's Essay as proof of the fact that 
Locke himself expressly warns people not to confuse faculties 
with the "notion of so many distinct agents within us." 15 And 
whether Locke and Watts believe in faculties in the second 
sense depends somewhat upon our interpretation of what is 
meant by mind as a "unit." Indeed, we cannot read many 
anti-formalists before we discover what appears to be a con- 



14 The edition used in connection with this paper was that of 1833, 
edited by "Joseph Emerson, Principal of the Female Seminary, Wethers- 
field, Conn.," published in Boston by Jenks, Palmer and Co. 

15 The first sentence of the Conduct of Understanding reads : "The 
last resort a man has recourse to, in the conduct of himself, is his under- 
standing ; for though we distinguish the faculties of the mind, and give 
the supreme command to the will, as to an agent, yet the truth is, the 
man who is the agent, determines himself to this or that voluntary ac- 
tion, upon some precedent knowledge, or appearance of knowledge in 
the understanding." 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 11 

fusion as regards this issue. We have already witnessed 
Ruediger's summary dismissal of unity of mind on the ground 
that it conflicts with the theory of localization of function. On 
the other hand, Duggan, whose loyalty to anti-formalism is 
above suspicion, attacks formal discipline with the weapon of 
unity of function. 

Psychology no longer holds that the mind Is made up of a 
number of faculties, but that it functions as a unit, sometimes as 
thinking, sometimes as feeling, sometimes as doing, and that any 
mental experience, such as the study of a school subject, develops 
the whole mind, and not any faculty of it. In fact modern psychol- 
ogy affirms that there is no such faculty as memory, but the mind 
has "memories," e. g., of time, place, things; it denies that an 
ability to remember places is necessarily accompanied by an equal 
ability to remember faces and dates. 16 

Evidently it is possible for Locke to believe the mind is a 
unit and still not be a formal disciplinarian. And, if I were 
to hazard a guess, I should say that Duggan's conception of 
the mind is not much different from that which Locke affirms. 
Certain it is that both Watts and Locke believe it is the mind 
which functions now as memory, now as observation, now as 
reason, and this function or power so to behave is what they 
designate as faculty. Watts clearly indicates as regards obser- 
vation and memory, for example, that he means a method of 
procedure. 

Observation is the notice that we take of all occurrences In 
human life, whether they are sensible or intellectual, whether 
relating to persons or things, to ourselves or others." 



18 Duggan, History of Education, 184. 

"Watts, p. 37. Watts states that he means by observation what 
Locke does. Section 13 of the Conduct of the Understanding indicates 
clearly that Locke is not thinking- of Observation in the abstract. Nor 
does it indicate a belief in transfer. "Particular matters of fact are 
the undoubted foundations on which our civil and natural knowledge 
Is built : the benefit the understanding makes of them is to draw from 
them conclusions which may be as standing rules of knowledge and 
consequently of practice. The mind often makes not that benefit it 
should of the information it receives from the accounts of civil or 
natural historians, by being too forward or too slow in making obser- 
vations on the particular facts recorded in them 

. . . . Between these, those seem to do best who, taking material and 
useful hints, sometimes from single matters of fact, carry them in their 
minds to be judged of by what they shall find in history to confirm or 
reverse their imperfect observations, which may be established into rules 
fit to be relied upon when they are justified by a sufficient and wary in- 
duction of particulars. He that makes no such reflection on what he 
reads, only loads his mind with a rhapsody of tales, fit in winter nights 
for the entertainment of others ; and he that will improve every matter 
of fact into a maxim, will abound in contrary observations that can be 
of no other use but to perplex and pudder him if he compares them, 



12 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

And, 

We are said to remember anything, when the idea of it arises in 
the mind with a consciousness at the same time that we had this 
idea before Our memory is our natural power of retaining what 
we learn and of recalling it on every occasion. 18 

Unity of mind thus conceived is one thing; it is another to 
conclude that the mind is a reservoir of energy, and to infer 
that "Once sharpen the intellectual axe and it is good for 
cutting any kind of wood; once develop mental muscle and 
it is good for lifting any kind of burden ; once go through the 
gymnasium for the mind and you are ready for the tasks of 
life." 19 To attribute this latter view to Locke or Watts is to 
ignore completely their constant insistence upon wide and 
varied experience. Surely, if they believed any sort of material 
would store up power usable to an equal degree in other fields, 
they must have realized the absurdity of requiring, as they 
did, a variety of subject matter. Thus Watts writes in his 
rules relating to observation: 

In order to furnish the mind with a rich variety of ideas, the 
laudable curiosity of young people should be indulged and gratified, 

rather than discouraged For this reason also, where time and 

fortune allow it, young people should be led into company at proper 
seasons, should be carried abroad, to see the fields, the woods, the 
rivers, the buildings, towers and cities, distant from their own 
dwellings. They should be entertained with the sight of strange 
birds, beasts, fishes, insects, vegetables, and productions both of 
nature and art of every kind, whether they are the products of 
their own or foreign nations. And, in due time, where Providence 
gives opportunity, they may travel under a wise inspector or tutor, 
to different parts of the world, for the same end, that they may 
bring home treasures of useful knowledge 

Among all these observations write down what is most remark- 
able and uncommon. Reserve these remarks in store for proper 
occasions and at proper seasons take a review of them. 20 

One may pick out passages at random from Locke's writ- 
ings which emphasize two things: first, that subject matter 

or else to misguide him if he gives himself up to the authority of that 
which for its novelty or for some other fancy best pleases him." And, 
they who read, "but not reflecting on it, not making to themselves obser- 
vations from what they read, they are very little improved by all that 
crowd of particulars that either pass through or lodge themselves in 
their understandings. They dream on in a constant course of reading 
and cramming themselves ; but not digesting anything, it produces nothing 
but a heap of crudities." See also Section 20 on Reading. 

18 Ibid., 163. It is interesting to relate Watts' definition of memory 
with that of James. James writes on page 287 of the Briefer Course, "It 
is the knowledge of an event, or fact, of which meantime we have not 
been thinking, with the additional consciousness that we have thought 
or experienced it before." 

M H. H. Home, The Psychological Principles of Education (New 
York, 1908). 

20 Watts, pp. 54-65. 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 13 

counts, and secondly, that subject matter counts only in terms 
of what one makes of it. I quote from the Conduct of the 
Understanding because that work supposedly best illustrates 
Locke's formalism: 

In this we may see the reason why some men of study and 
thought, that reason right and are lovers of truth, do make no 
advances in their discoveries of it. Error and truth are uncertainly 
blended in their minds; their decisions are lame and defective, and 
they are very often mistaken in their judgments: the reason where- 
of is, they converse with but one sort of men, they read but one 
sort of books, they will not come in the hearing of but one sort 
of notions; the truth is, they canton out to themselves a little 
Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines, and as they 
conclude, day blesses them; but the rest of that vast expansion 
they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid coming near it. 
They have a pretty traffic with known correspondents, in some 
little creek; within that they confine themselves, but will not ven- 
ture out into the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the riches 
that nature hath stored other parts with, no less genuine, no less 
solid, no less useful than what has fallen to their lot, in the 
admired plenty and sufficiency of their own little spot, which to 
them contains whatsoever is good in the universe. 21 

Locke's discipline of the faculties is fairly represented in 
the following: 

I do not say to be a good geographer that a man should visit 
every mountain, river, promontory, and creek upon the face of the 
earth, view the buildings and survey the land everywhere, as if he 
were going to make a purchase; but yet everyone must allow that 
he shall know a country better that makes often sallies into it 
and traverses up and down, than he that like a mill-horse goes 
still round in the same track, or keeps within the narrow bounds 
of a field or two that delight him. He that will enquire out the 
best books in every science, and inform himself of the most 
material authors of the several sects of philosophy and religion, 
will not find it an infinite work to acquaint himself with the senti- 
ments of mankind concerning the most weighty and comprehensive 
subjects. Let him exercise freedom of his reason and understand- 
ing in such a latitude as this, and his mind will be strengthened, 
his capacity enlarged, his faculties improved; and the light which 
the remote and scattered parts of truth will give to one another 
will so assist his judgment, that he will seldom be widely out, or 
miss giving proof of a clear head and a comprehensive knowledge. 

In point of fact, a correct interpretation of Locke must 
leave his conception of mind unclear. Evidently Locke, as 
Descartes before him, does not realize the ambiguities and 
difficulties involved in speaking of the mind. And Locke does 
not realize these difficulties because they develop only after the 
implications of his philosophy are made more explicit by sub- 
sequent philosophy. He seems to consider the mind as a unit, 
but this is not un-ambiguous. Thus, after condemning the 
conception of the will as a faculty, in the sense of a distinct 

21 This quotation as well as the next one is found In Section 3. 



14 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

agent or power separate from the mind, he says, "It is not one 
power that operates on another ; but it is the mind that operates, 
and exerts these powers ; it is the agent that has powers, or 
is able to do." 22 But if we seek to arrive at a more precise 
and detailed notion of what Locke means by Mind, or Under- 
standing, we encounter great difficulty. 23 Strict accuracy prob- 
ably will require us to say that he leaves the nature of mind 
as a problem for his successors. Its existence was for him 
one of those natural assumptions of common discourse which 
we all make, but of whose vagueness we are not aware. Not 
until after Hume do we have an articulate expression of the 
nature of mind. Whatever faults we may find with the dis- 
ciplinary conception of mind, it is at least definite and formu- 
lated in such a fashion that in consequence it becomes a subject 
of investigation and study. 

What is Locke's relation to the second characteristic of 
formal discipline? Was he interpreted as advocating the doc- 
trine that training one power leads to a transfer of energy or 
ability to another power? Do his followers believe that train- 
ing memory in one respect increases memory ability in other 
particulars ? 

I think a critical reading of Locke and of Watts will con- 
vince us that the question of transfer simply does not occur 
to them. First, as to transfer from one power to another. 
Watts recognizes and constantly draws attention to the fact 
that memory and judgment are two quite distinct faculties. 
Memory is a basis for judgment, but "a person may have a 
very strong, capacious and retentive memory, where the judg- 
ment is very weak." 24 "There have been instances of others, 
who have had a very tolerable power of memory; yet their 
judgment has been of much superior degree, just and wise, 
solid and excellent." The cramming of memory with unor- 
ganized facts does not lead to good judgment. Watts believes 
the best judgments require a survey and comparison of data 
and "there can be no such comprehensive survey of many 

22 Essay, Book II, Ch. XXI, Sec. 8. 

23 Compare, for example, in Book II of the Essay, Ch. I, Sec. 23, 
Ch. VI, Sec. 2, Ch. VIII, Sec. 1, Ch. XXI, Sec. 5, and Ch. XXVII. 

"Watts, 165-6. "It is meditation and studious thought, it is the 
exercise of your own reason and judgment upon all you read, that gives 
good sense even to the best genius and affords your understanding the 
truest improvement. A boy of strong memory may repeat a whole book 
of Euclid, yet be no geometer ; for he may not be able to demonstrate 
one single theorem." 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 15 

things without a tolerable degree of memory," but we are no- 
where given to understand that he believes memory drill, for 
example, betters judgment, or reason. And, in this respect, he 
remains true to his master. 25 

It is true that Locke is frequently quoted as believing drill 
upon mathematics will improve judgment and reason upon all 
occasions. Thus Graves writes : 26 

Hence to train the mind to make proper discriminations, he de- 
clares in the Conduct of the Understanding that practice and dis- 
cipline are necessary. "Would you have a man reason well, you 
must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the 
connection of ideas and following them in train." As to the means 
of effecting this mental discipline, Locke holds: "Nothing does 
this better than mathematics, which therefore I think should be 
taught all those who have the time and opportunity, not so much 
to make them mathematicians as to make them reasonable crea- 
tures, that having got the way of reasoning, which that study neces- 
sarily brings the mind to, they may be able to transfer it to other 
parts of knowledge as they shall have occasion."" 

Now, in so far as this may mean a method of procedure 
consciously acquired, it is not formal discipline. I return to 
this below. The main objection to the use of the quotation 
from Locke in this connection is the one which may be urged 
against all selections from Locke used to indicate his formalism. 
It is the objection that the quotations are taken out of their 
context. The section from which Graves quotes is Section 
6 and deals with Principles. Locke has been insisting that un- 
less we accustom ourselves from youth up to reason strictly 
and according to sound principles we shall not do so, nor 
shall we perceive the want of so doing. I wish now to quote 
from the paragraph preceding the quotation and the im- 
mediately succeeding paragraph. The man unaccustomed to 
exercising sound judgment, says Locke, 28 

.... "sees no such defect in himself, but is satisfied that he 
carries on his designs well enough by his own reasoning, or at 
least should have done, had it not been for unlucky traverses not 
in his power. Thus, being content with this short and very im- 
perfect use of his understanding, he never troubles himself to seek 
out methods of improving his mind, and lives all his life without 

25 For example, see the Conduct of the Understanding, Section 3 and 
also Section 20 on Reading. 

M F. P. Graves, A Student's History of Education (New York, 1915), 
180-1. 

27 Italics are mine. 

28 The quotation begins with paragraph six of Section 6 on Principles. 



16 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

any notion of close reasoning in a continued connection of a long 
train of consequences from sure foundations, such as is requisite 
for the making out and clearing most of the speculative truths 
most men own to believe and are most concerned in. Not to men- 
tion here what I shall have occasion to insist on by and by more 
fully, viz., that in many cases it is not one series of consequences 
will serve the turn, but many different and opposite deductions 
must be examined and laid together before a man can come to 
make a right judgment of the point in question. What then can 
be expected from men that neither see the want of any such kind 
of reasoning as this; nor, if they do, know how to set about it, or 
could perform it? You may as well set a countryman, who scarce 
knows the figures and never cast up a sum of three particulars, to 
state a merchant's long account, and find the true balance of it. 

"What then should be done in the case? I answer, we should always 
remember what I said above, that the faculties of our souls are im- 
proved and made useful to us just after the same manner as our 
bodies are. Would you have a man write or paint, dance or fence 
well, or perform any other manual operation dexterously and with 
ease; let him have ever so much vigour and activity, suppleness and 
address naturally, yet nobody expects this from him unless he has 
been used to it, and has employed time and pains in fashioning and 
forming his hand or outward parts to these motions. Just so is the 
mind; would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it be- 
times, exercise his mind in observing the connection of ideas and 
following them in train. Nothing does this better than mathematics, 
which therefore I think should be taught to all those who have the 
time and opportunity, not so much to make them mathematicians 
as to make them reasonable creatures; for though we all call our- 
selves so because we are born to it if we please, yet we may truly 
say, nature gives us but the seeds of it; we are born to be, if we A 
please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise only that makes 
us so, and we are indeed so no further than industry and applica- 
tion has carried us. And, therefore, in ways of reasoning which men 
have not been used to, he that will observe the conclusions they take 
up must be satisfied they are not at all rational. 29 

This has been the less taken notice of because every one in his 
private affairs uses some sort of reasoning or other enough to 
denominate him reasonable. But the mistake is that he that is 
found reasonable in one thing is concluded to be so in all, and to 
think or say otherwise is thought so unjust an affront and so 
senseless a censure that nobody ventures to do it. It looks like 
the degradation of a man below the dignity of his nature. It is true 
that he that reasons well in any one thing has a mind naturally 
capable of reasoning well in others, and to the same degree of 
strength and clearness, and possibly much greater, had his under- 
standing been employed. But it is as true that he who can reason 



*> Italics are mine. 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 17 

■well today about one sort of matters, cannot at all reason today 
about others, though perhaps a year hence he may. But wherever 
a man's rational faculty fails him, and will not serve him to reason, 
there we cannot say he is rational, how capable soever he may be 
by time and exercise to become so. 

A formalist surely can derive little satisfaction from this 
passage. 

If the reader will compare Graves' quotation with the pas- 
sage I quote, he will notice that I omit that part of the sen- 
tence (as given by Graves) which follows the word oppor- 
tunity and which reads, "not so much to make them mathema- 
ticians as to make them reasonable creatures, that having got 
the way of reasoning, which that study necessarily brings the 
mind to, they may be able to transfer it to other parts of knowl- 
edge as they shall have occasion." I omit this because Locke 
did not write it thus. The first part of the sentence is found 
in Section 6, as I give it, and the second, the part I have just 
quoted, is the second half of the first sentence of Section 7. 
The failure to indicate large omissions in Graves' text is not 
my carelessness. Perhaps a printer's error stands uncorrected. 
If so, it is very unfortunate, for the result is to give a student 
a completely false impression of Locke's meaning. I have 
traced this quotation back to Monroe's Text Book, published 
in 1905. In most histories (which appear to select their quota- 
tions from Monroe rather than from Locke) the signs of 
ellipsis occur, but none indicates that in the first portion of 
the quotation Locke is talking about faults in reasoning, and, in 
particular, about "a custom of taking up with principles that 
are not self-evident, and very often not so much as true," and 
in the second about mathematics as a general method of reason- 
ing. Even though we should acquiesce in the questionable 
assumption that texts for students do not require the scientific 
care one employs in preparing tracts for members of his pro- 
fession, an historian can hardly escape the moral obligation he 
owes both the author he interprets and the student whom 
he informs, of fairly representing the author's views. 

And in this particular situation the results of misinterpreta- 
tion are peculiarly significant. If we read the mutilated frag- 
ment, torn from Section 7, in the context which Graves and 
others supply, we naturally infer that Locke believes studying 
mathematics as mathematics gives one a power of reasoning 



18 UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN STUDIES 

which he can transfer to any concrete case of reasoning ; where- 
as Locke means in the first place that the mathematical method 
of procedure is superior to the scholastic method which, in his 
time, was accepted as a model in the schools, and secondly, he 
believes that the mathematical method of arranging argument 
is the most effective arrangement of our ideas when reason- 
ing. Whatsoever we may say about mathematical procedure 
as a logical method, to advocate it as a model to follow in 
reasoning is not the same thing as to maintain that the study 
of mathematics as mathematics gives us a power of reasoning 
which we may transfer with advantage to any concrete sit- 
uation. 

But let us read the sentence in the original paragraph as 
Locke himself wrote it: 

I have mentioned mathematics as a way to settle in the mind a 
habit of reasoning closely and in train; not that I think it necessary 
that all men should be deep mathematicians, but that, having got 
the way of reasoning which that study necessarily brings the mind 
to, they might be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge 
as they shall have occasion. For in all sorts of reasoning every 
single argument should be managed as a mathematical demonstra- 
tion, the connection and dependence of ideas should be followed, 
till the mind is brought to the source on which it bottoms, and 
observes the coherence all along, though in proofs of probability 
one such train is not enough to settle the judgment, as in demon- 
strative knowledge. 10 



S0 The use which in turn Monroe, Ruediger, and Graves make of 
these quotations from Locke indicates a striking agreement of inter- 
pretation ; an agreement not alone of thought, but of procedure as well. 
On page 519 of his Text Book (1905), Monroe writes: "The entire 
treatise," referring to the Conduct, "is devoted to a reiteration of the 
idea that intellectual education is a formation of habit of thought, 
through exercise and discipline. 

" 'The faculties of our souls are improved and made useful to us 
just after the same manner as our bodies are. Would you have a man 
write or paint, dance or fence well, or perform any other manual op- 
eration dexterously and with ease ; let him have ever so much vigor and 
activity, suppleness and address naturally, yet nobody expects this from 
him unless he has been used to it, and has employed time and pains in 
fashioning and forming his hand or outward parts to these motions. Just 
so is the mind ; would you have a man reason well, you must use him 
to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection of ideas and 
following them in train.' " 

Monroe breaks the quotation at this point to observe, "Respecting 
the choice of subject matter appropriate to this end, he continues in 
the manner characteristic of this entire school of educational thought" 
And then, Monroe joins the two passages as follows : 

" 'Nothing does this better than mathematics, which therefore I 
think should be taught to all those who have the time and opportunity, 
not so much to make them mathematicians as to make them reason- 
able creatures ; for though we all call ourselves so because we are born 
to it if we please, yet we may truly say, nature gives us but the seeds 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OP LOCKE 19 

It seems then, we may conclude that Locke and his disciple, 
Watts, do not advocate the possibility of transfer from one 
power to another. What do they maintain as regards transfer 
within a given function? A careful reading of Watts* rules 
for improving the memory will reveal no evidence that Watts 
believes in training memory as such; that is, that memorizing 
one fact directly increases ability to memorize other facts. In- 
deed one may raise the question, Does the problem of transfer 
of training arise until philosophers become conscious that all 
minds are not alike? It is true that men speak of acquiring 
mental power by continuous application, but this is not neces- 
sarily transfer of training. They may mean general mental 
habits of work, or they may mean increased facility in a given 
field of work. Neither of these is transfer of training in the 
formal sense. In his well-known chapter on Imagination, 
William James 31 states that Fechner in 1860 was the first to 



of it ; we are born to be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use 
and exercise only that makes us so, and we are indeed so no further than 
industry and application has carried us. ... I have mentioned mathe- 
matics as a way to settle in the mind a habit of reasoning closely and 
in train ; not that I think it necessary that all men should be deep mathe- 
maticians, but that, having got the way of reasoning, which that study 
necessarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer it to 
other parts of knowledge as they shall have occasion.' " 

In 1909 appears Ruediger's Principles of Education with a discussion 
of formal discipline similar to that of Monroe ; similar to Monroe even 
in the selection of Fouillee, Huxley, and Locke as a background for 
his presentation. We are concerned alone with his treatment of Locke. 
Reudiger, as Monroe, quotes Locke on mathematics, but abbreviates 
Monroe's selection. Thus, Ruediger unites the two sections as follows : 
"Would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it betimes, 
exercise his mind in the connection of ideas and following them in train. 
Nothing does this better than mathematics which therefore I think 
should be taught to all those who have the time and opportunity, not 
so much to make them mathematicians as to make them reasonable 
creatures. . . . Not that I think it necessary that all men should be 
deep mathematicians, but that, having got the way of reasoning, which 
that study necessarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer 
it to other parts of knowledge as they shall have occasion." 

The step which Graves makes is now easily taken. When he pub- 
lished in 1914 his History of Education During the Middle Ages, he 
omitted all indications of ellipsis ; referred neither to Monroe nor to 
Ruediger, and inserted the quotation as I have given it, and attributed 
it to Locke as though the latter originally wrote it thus in the Conduct. 
And not only did he commit this error in 1914, but repeated it in his 
Student's History of Education, published in 1915. 

Had Locke known that such treatment was to be accorded his 
philosophy, I can imagine him pleading much as does Shakespeare for 
his body : 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare, 
To dlgg the dust enclosed heare." 

n Psychology, II, 60. 



20 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

draw attention to the fact that men differ in types of mental 
imagery. Prior to Fechner philosophers spoke as though there 
were a typical mind. Subsequent studies of Galton and others 
drew attention forcefully to the fact that men's minds differ. 
With this discovery, experimental psychology begins, 32 and 
then it is that we have speculations as regards transfer of 
training. 

By this I do not imply that Watts and Locke did not recog- 
nize the importance of method of procedure. Indeed, perhaps 
it is a false identification of their emphasis upon acquiring an 
effective method of procedure with the quite different concep- 
tion of formal discipline which accounts for a classification of 
Locke as a formalist. Watts has much to say as to method — 
but it is method as applied to concrete material. Consequently, 
to confine ourselves to memory, — Watts emphasizes the im- 
portance of attention as an aid to memory. "Due attention and 
diligence to understand things, we would commit to memory, 
is necessary, in order to make them take more effectual pos- 
session of the mind." 33 Frequent reviews and careful repeti- 
tions are important, etc. Watts' discussion, like Locke's chap- 
ter on Retention in his Essay, surprises one with its modern 
tone. 

As with memory, so with the other faculties : Locke un- 
doubtedly intended what Watts continually insists upon — the 
necessity of developing a method for an economical use of the 
mind. He assumes that a consciousness of an efficient method 
of procedure arrived at by analyzing and studying an activity 
actually engaged in will improve that activity. Locke, as we 
have seen, believed the mathematical method represents the 
ideal procedure of the reasoning process, but we have to dis- 
tinguish between an error in his description of the correct 
method of thinking — if he was in error — and the validity of 
his general position. If consciousness of successful method 
has no effect upon actual practice, a revolution would seem 
necessary in the courses of study of our educational training 



82 For historical review of studies on mental correlations, see Spear- 
man's study "General Intelligence," American Journal of Psychology, XV 
(1904), 206 ff. 

"Watts, pp. 173-176. 

tfH 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OP LOCKE 21 

schools. Just as the logician 3i assumes that the scientist, who 
is conscious of scientific method, will benefit in the concrete 
application of it to a specific problem, so Watts and Locke 
believed we can better our procedure of inquiring and learning 
when we are conscious of the technique or method used in suc- 
cessful thinking. The logician as well as Locke and Watts 
may be wrong, but, again, we must not identify this position 
with the quite different belief in a transfer of power usable 
in any concrete situation. 35 

The nearest approach to transfer that we find in Watts 
is the common sense opinion so frequently expressed by Locke 
that we may work over our experiences and use them to solve 
varied problems. Thus he insists : 

Every man, who pretends to the character of a scholar should 
attain some general idea of most or all the sciences; for there is 
a certain connection among the various parts of human knowledge, 
so that some notions borrowed from any one science, may assist our 
acquaintance with any other, either by way of explication, illustra- 
tion, or proof; though there are some sciences conjoined by a 
much nearer affinity than others. 38 

And throughout his book Watts insists upon personal medi- 
tation and organization of the materials secured by reading, 
lecture, observation or what-not in order to be of value. "It is 



" Thus J. S. Mill writes : "We need not, therefore, seek any further 
for a solution of the question, so often agitated, respecting the utility 
of logic. If a. science of logic exists, or is capable of existing, it must 
be useful. If there be rules to which every mind consciously or uncon- 
sciously conforms in every instance in which it infers rightly, there 
seems little necessity for discussing whether a person is more likely to 
observe those rules, when he knows the rules, than when he is unac- 
quainted with them." Logic, Intro., Sec. 6. 

86 See John Dewey, "Method as General and as Individual," Democ- 
racy and Education (New York, 1916), 200. 

"The artist studies the progress of his own attempts to see what 
succeeds and what fails. The assumption that there are no alternatives 
between following ready-made rules and trusting to native gifts, the 
inspiration of the moment and undirected "hard work," is contradicted by 
the procedure of every art. 

"Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of 
materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured, sup- 
ply the material for what may be called general method. There exists a 
cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body 
authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an 
individual ignores at his peril. As was pointed out in the discussion of 
habit-forming, there is always a danger that these methods will become 
mechanized and rigid, mastering an agent instead of being powers at 
command for his own ends. But it is also true that the innovator who 
achieves anything enduring, whose work is more than a passing sensa- 
tion, ut .es classic methods more than may appear to himself or to his 
critics. He devotes them to new uses, and in so far transforms them." 

"Watts, pp. 211-12. 



22 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 

our own meditation and the labor of our own thoughts that 
must form our judgment of things." Were Watts writing in 
1903, after a reading of Thorndike's Psychology, he would un- 
doubtedly have seized upon the suggestive figure, "identical 
elements," as illustrative of his dominant attitude in learning. 
His substitute term is meditation. 

It is meditation, that conveys the notions and sentiments of 
others to ourselves, so as to make them properly our own. It is our 
own judgment upon them, as well as our memory of them, that 
makes them become our property. It does, as it were, concoct our 
intellectual food, and turns it into a part of ourselves; just as a 
man may call his limbs and his flesh his own, whether he borrowed 
the materials from the ox or the sheep, from the lark or the lobster; 
whether he derived it from corn or milk, the fruit of trees, or the 
herbs of the earth. It has now become one substance with him- 
self." 

And nowhere can I discover that Watts believes the char- 
acter of the food matters not, or, that the "one substance with 
himself" would be the same "substance" regardless of whether 
he partook of a well-balanced diet of proteids, carbohydrates, 
etc., or fed energetically, albeit economically, upon an exclusive 
diet of sawdust. In short, for both Locke and Watts knowledge 
results from two factors — sensation and reflection. The mind 
is not a tabula rasa for Locke. He used this expression in 
refuting innate ideas, but in refuting innate ideas he did not 
abandon innate powers. 38 Extreme partisans may emphasize 
exclusively one factor in knowledge to the neglect of the 
other, and, consequently, insist upon content alone or inner 
development primarily, but Locke considers one indispensable 
for the other. 

We may therefore conclude, I think, that Locke's theories, 
as interpreted and his teachings as applied in the academies 
were quite the reverse of those associated with the dogma of 
formal discipline. 

III. 

I have emphasized Locke's relation to the academies be- 
cause they should reveal his influence upon educational practice 
and theory in England and America. His influence upon the 
continent is a separate study. Historians admit he influenced 



87 Ibid., 47. 

" Failure to distinguish between denying innate ideas and innate 
powers is the point in Thomas Burnet's criticism of Locke which par- 
ticularly irritated the latter. See the excellent monograph, The Moral 
and Political Philosophy of John Locke, by S. P. Lamprecht (Columbia 
Univ. Press, 1919), 72. 



THE MISINTERPRETATION OF LOCKE 23 

Rousseau, but not in the way of formal discipline. Through 
his influence upon Basedow Locke directly affected the de- 
velopment of secular schools in Germany. Parker says of 
Locke : 

Locke's influence on German pedagogy was very great. This 
influence was exerted not only through Rousseau's "Emile", but 
directly. Basedow (1723-1790), especially, was indebted to Locke 
and Commenius as two of the chief sources of his theories, and 
through Basedow many of these ideas found a place in the new 
schools which grew out of his propaganda in Germany. One of 
Basedow's co-laborers, Campe, (1746-1818), translated Locke's 
"Thoughts" into German. . . . The theories of Locke which Basedow 
and his associates organized most effectively in practice were, (1) 
those concerning physical health, freedom, exercise, etc., and (2) 
those which advocate making all instruction pleasant by basing it 
on children's games." 59 

Admittedly, then, Locke's influence upon European educa- 
tional development was not of the character of formal dis- 
cipline. 

There is little value in seeking to determine Locke's influ- 
ence upon educational theory after the writings of Rousseau 
and Pestalozzi. With the publication of the Emile in 1762 
and the establishment of Pestalozzi's school at BurgdorfF 
(1799), the determining of educational theory passed distinctly 
into other hands. In America Horace Mann plainly looked to 
Prussia as a model for the American public school system and 
Barnard, Woodbridge, Russell, and others used their journals 
as means of disseminating Pestalozzian ideas. 

And yet it is in this literature that one finds constant refer- 
ence to the discipline of the faculties. And here too we find 
a conception of the mind as a unit. Russell develops this view 
clearly in Barnard's American Pedagogy, which contains, in 
Part 1, Russell's contribution on Intellectual Education. I 
do not wish to dwell upon this treatise because it connects with 
Pestalozzi and not with Locke. I do wish to point out, how- 
ever, that Russell realized the term faculties was beginning to 
cause trouble. He writes : 

From the imperfection of our language, in relation to topics 
strictly mental, or purely philosophical, the word faculties is un- 
avoidably employed to represent the diversities in modes of action 
of the mind, which in itself, is, properly speaking, one and indivis- 
ible. But if we keep fully before us the etymological signification 

*• S. C. Parker, The History of Modern Elementary Education (New 
York, 1912), 169. 



24 UNIVERSITY OF "WISCONSIN STUDIES 

of the term faculties (resources, means, powers) we shall regard 
it but as a figurative expression, suggestive of the indefinitely 
diversified states, acts, operations, processes, powers, or modes of 
action, attributable to the mind — itself a unit. 4 " 

Evidently, Pestalozzi's emphasis upon cultivating the child's 
instincts and capacities was becoming subject to misinterpreta- 
tion or abuse, and the unfoldment of one's powers, or the 
"development of the faculties" was already conceived in a 
formal manner. This is manifest in the report of the Oswego 
Board of Education in 1862.* 1 Referring to Pestalozzi, it 
says, "He sought to develop and strengthen the faculties of the 
child." And "He wished the art of observing should be 
acquired. He thought the thing perceived of less importance 
than the cultivation of the perceptive powers." And, writes 
Parker, "As a consequence there was established the dreary 
grind of 'sense training.' " 

It would seem then that it is Pestalozzi and not Locke who 
must bear responsibility for the theory of formal discipline, as 
expressed in popular literature. His theory of inner develop- 
ment and his own lapses into a purely formal procedure are 
more akin to the theory of formal discipline than anything 
we find in Locke. 

To be sure, we can show that Pestalozzi drew from Rousseau 
and Rousseau acknowledged his indebtedness to Locke, but to 
infer that Locke should consequently assume responsibility for 
the theory of formal discipline which the Herbartians op- 
posed, 42 is to argue after the manner of the old exercise in 
logic textbooks: 

The child of Themistocles governed his mother; she governed 
her husband; he governed Athens; Athens, Greece; and Greece the 
world; therefore, the child of Themistocles governed the world. 

If it is granted that Locke is not a formal disciplinarian, the 

question obviously arises, how came historians so to interpret 

him? The answer constitutes an interesting chapter in the 

history of education as yet unwritten. 

40 American Pedagogy, Education, The School and the Teacher in 
American Literature (Republished from Barnard's American Journal of 
Education) Edition of 1876. Russell was editor of the first American 
Journal of Education, (1826-31), taught elocution at Harvard and in 
other colleges and from 1849-59 conducted a private Pestalozzian "Nor- 
mal Institute" in New Hampshire. "Intellectual Education" is com- 
piled from professional lectures delivered at the Normal Institute in 
New Hampshire and the New England Normal Institute, Lancaster, Mass. 

41 Parker, p. 278. 

43 Ribot writes in his La psychologie allemande contemporaine, p. 4, 
"J'incline a croire, pourtant, qu'elles avaient 6te suggergs a Herbart 
molns par ses propres reflexions que par la lecture de Locke," quoted 
in John Adams' The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education (Bos- 
ton, 1899), 88. 



nun mi mi nijiii.ii huh iii'Hii I II 

021 347 001 2 



